In the art various vacuum cleaning devices have been disclosed whose operating principle is based on vibrating airwaves or airstreams to promote the release of dirt from a carpet. The use of vibrating airwaves may provide for better dirt release capability than conventional vacuum cleaners, which merely use steady air stream suction to both release and remove dirt from the carpet, and avoid the wear of the carpet that is typically caused by vacuum cleaners that employ mechanical agitation systems, such a beating or rotating brushes.
An example of a vibrating air wave based vacuum cleaner is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,400,466 (Alderman et al.). The vacuum cleaner features an air vibration suction nozzle for application to a carpet, wherein air vibration produced by a transducer, such as a loudspeaker, supported and sealed in the nozzle housing, vibrates the carpet and the dirt captured therein so as to loosen dirt particles from the carpet in order to enable them to be drawn into the vacuum cleaner through the suction nozzle.
It is known from DE880474C to provide a cleaning device for cleaning a carpet having face yarns that extend over a distance of several millimeters from a generally planar backing to define a carpet surface, comprising: an oscillator unit, including an oscillator; an oscillation space that is at least partially defined by or accommodates at least part of the oscillator, and that is accessible through a jet opening via which ambient fluid is alternatingly drawn into the oscillation space and expelled from the oscillation space during operation of the oscillator; and a nozzle, including a support structure configured to support the nozzle against the carpet.